Homogenizing Silicon Domains in SiO Anode during Cycling and Enhancing Battery Performance via Magnesium Doping.

SiO ( ≈ 1) is one of the most promising anode materials for application in secondary lithium-ion batteries because of its high theoretical capacity. Despite this merit, SiO has a poor initial Coulombic efficiency, which impedes its widespread use. To overcome this limitation, in this work, we successfully demonstrate a novel synthesis of Mg-doped SiO via a mass-producible physical vapor deposition method.

Activation of β-catenin by TGF-β1 promotes ligament-fibroblastic differentiation and inhibits cementoblastic differentiation of human periodontal ligament cells.

TGF-β and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways are known to be essential for the development of periodontal tissue. In this study, we examined the crosstalk between TGF-β and Wnt/β-catenin signaling in ligament-fibroblastic differentiation of human periodontal ligament cells (hPDLCs). TGF-β1 treatment significantly increased the expression of ligament-fibroblastic markers, but such expression was preventing by treatment with SB431542, a TGF-β type I receptor inhibitor.

Amelogenic transcriptome profiling in ameloblast-like cells derived from adult gingival epithelial cells.

Dental enamel is the highly mineralized tissue covering the tooth surface and is formed by ameloblasts. Ameloblasts have been known to be impossible to detect in adult tooth because they are shed by apoptosis during enamel maturation and tooth eruption. Owing to these, little was known about appropriate cell surface markers to isolate ameloblast-like cells in tissues.

Expression and localization of Rdd proteins in Xenopus embryo.

The previous study has shown that repeated D domain-like (Rdd) proteins, a group of novel secretory proteins consisting of repeated domains of a cysteine-rich sequence, are involved in the process of blood vessel formation in Xenopus embryo. We performed further experiments to examine the localization of Rdd proteins in embryogenesis. Detection of tagged Rdd proteins expressed in blastomeres showed that Rdd proteins formed a high molecular weight complex and existed in the extracellular space.

Peptide nucleic acid synthesis by novel amide formation.

Synthesis of self-activated peptide nucleic acid (PNA) monomers and an efficient method for PNA synthesis using a benzothiazole-2-sulfonyl (Bts) group as an amine-protecting group as well as an acid-activating group are reported. Couplings were complete within 120 min, and the deprotection was performed in 10 min. This Bts strategy provides a high purity PNA oligomer and is appropriate for large-scale synthesis.